DOUBTING THOMAS (December board meeting)

--SOME NOTES on the Dec. 12 meeting of the Board of Trustees. PREBICKERMENT: There was a seriously weird vibe in the air when I entered the board room at just before 7:00. For once, all of the trustees were in their seats and they were looking forward in silence. Something was up. Maybe they got a heads up on the Accred reports. I dunno. Trustee Fuentes announced that some guy named King was approved as the Vice Chancellor of Human Resources. Nothing was announced concerning the classified contract, which remains in limbo. Several classified employees--and some faculty--spoke in support of a "fair contract" for classified. Dozens of red-shirted classified filled the seats in the auditorium. During the yearly "organizational" meeting--they've gotta unconvene and reconvene for that--the existing officers were given another year to mess things up. That means that Dave Lang will continue as President of the Board for another year.

  CURIOUS CONSENT CALENDAR CLASH: Items 12 through 35, which concerned the construction of the IVC "performing arts" center, were on the "consent calendar," which means that Lang hoped for summary approval on those items. But Trustee Padberg asked to pull those items from the CC in order to ask questions about them. Evidently, these items concerned tens of millions of dollars, and the Nance wanted to let the public in on how that money would be spent, etc. Now, as far as I know, in the past, any time a trustee has asked to pull something from the CC, the request has been honored as a matter of course. But not on this night. Williams and Wagner seemed to come unglued over the whole business, and they got seriously nasty about it, even suggesting that Nancy hadn't done her homework, that she shoulda looked at her packet more carefully and telephoned staff, etc. Lang and Mathur (& Fuentes?) seemed to chime in on Williams/Wagner's vibe. Meanwhile, Marcia M, sensing a dogpile, joined Nancy's team. She did a good job backing up Nancy. In the end, Lang sided with Nancy, but only because the board's lawyer, Warren Kinsler, had already left for home, and Lang wanted to consult with him about whether he could blow off Nancy's request. Kinsler, you'll recall, is the sharpie who lost the "hiring policy" suit for the board. (Well, really, it was the law that lost it for 'em.)

  PRIDE, BEWILDERMENT, PRIZES: At one point, Lang made some remarks that seemed to be his "state of the district" speech. He declared that there's a lot for the board to be proud of. This provoked much bewilderment. It was about then that Mathur stood up to give Dave some kinda prize for excellence or something. It was pretty icky, and I don't even use that word. 

  TOM BRIEFLY WRESTLES SATAN: Well, after a bit, the meeting got started in earnest, and, among the items was # 48, approval of the full-time faculty hiring policy. You'll recall that, two or three years ago, Mathur formed a committee to develop a new hiring policy, but he didn't invite faculty to the table, despite the law, which requires that development and approval of that policy be joint between the "district" and the "academic senates" (i.e., the faculty). Naturally, Mathur produced an absurdly anti-faculty policy that the Board Majority just loved. The latter rammed it through, despite vociferous faculty objections. Said Wagner at the time: you don't like it? So "sue us." So the senates sued and won and the process started again. This time Mathur and his pals pushed through a similarly odious policy, only this time with faculty at the table, but they were rendered helpless to stop it. Judge Smith seemed to have it in for faculty, and, absurdly, he judged that that second policy was produced with mutual agreement, despite faculty's explicit and repeated rejection of it.

  Faculty took the decision to appellate court and won bigtime. In the meantime, the Accred's turned up the heat on Mathur and his Micromanagers about their nasty and lawless ways, and so Mathur was very cooperative with the next and most recent effort to develop a policy. A month or so ago, the two sides did produce a nice little policy, and Mathur, with the Accreds still breathing hard down his neck, brought it to the board last night, hoping to get this "hiring policy" thing behind him. Whew! Well, everybody was on board with that--except Tom Fuentes, who, as you know, views faculty as rodents. Unionized rodents. Satanic, Darwin-loving rodents.

  So he picked away at the new policy, complaining about the possibility of "cronyism," a perfect instance of the pot calling the kettle black. Fuentes carped that the composition of the search committee is biased (4/3) toward faculty and against "management." He opined that faculty are also members of the union, and so, if 4 of the 7 committee members are faculty, then the union controls the process. That's some logic! Others pointed out that, in fact, "management" was an equal partner on the team that produced this new draft, and so they obviously felt that the new policy is fair to "management." Plus, in the end, management, i.e., the college presidents, can reject the names put up for final interview and can insist on getting three candidates, etc. In the end, they've got the power, not faculty. Plus (noted Williams) there's an EEOC rep on every committee to keep things on the up 'n' up, fairness-wise. None of this seemed to pacify the Fuenster, who continued to grumble disapprovingly and toss rude darts at the policy. TOMMY 

DIDN'T DO HIS HOMEWORK: At one point, one of our Academic Senate presidents suggested that, in view of Fuentes' comments, it seemed that the fellow hadn't read the policy. Fuentes snorted and said that he didn't have the policy "before" him, i.e., how's I guy supposed to read something if it isn't provided? But, in fact, the policy was in Fuentes' packet. He'd had it for a week. Oh yeah? But what about cronyism? countered Fuentes. Cronyism! Cronyism! Cronyism! The college presidents and Mathur then explained that they could police the process re cronyism and other potential horrors just fine. In the end, Fuentes explained that he really appreciated all the work "managers" put into this new draft--he seemed to exclude faculty from his gratitude--but, he added, he couldn't "in good conscience" vote for a policy that was so biased against "management." Lang said he took "exception" to Fuentes' viewing the policy as unfair to management. He said that there are adequate "checks and balances" in the system in terms of the new policy. Padberg reminded us that she hadn't voted for the earlier policy--the faculty-unfriendly policy--but she was happy to vote for this new one. She said that she, too, appreciated all the work that went into it. She included faculty in her thanks. The Board voted approval, 6/1. I left at 9:30, so I don't know what happened next, but I'll get you an update soon.

  UPDATE: DECEMBER 2004: Do you remember how, a year ago, Chancellor Mathur didn't have the four votes he needed to get his contract renewed? Remember how, for months, we thought he might actually be toast? But then, somehow, things changed: inexplicably, Trustee Lang was singin' a different tune about Raghu and, by summer, Mathur was back on top. Not only was his contract renewed, but he now received a quarter million dollar salary! At the time, Dave told his supporters among the faculty (he used to have some) that Mathur could change. Said Dave, Raghu can become the kind of administrator he is supposed to be. --You know, the non-tyrannical, non-scheming, non-duplicitous kind. Just give the poor fellow a chance! 

  DECEMBER 2005: Did you read Tracy's "Board Meeting Highlights" for last night's meeting? Open it up, and you see three photos. The second one shows Lang and Mathur. "What's that about?" you ask. Well, according to Tracy, Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur congratulated President Lang and commended him for his genuine interest in team building and willingness to recognize excellence. Yeah, I was there, and that's just what happened. No comment.